Apache Maven

Independent from OS. Project build can be made on any OS. Project file is the same.

Dependency management. Projects are rarely written without the use of third-party libraries (dependencies). Such third-party libraries also use libraries of different versions in their turn. Maven gives the opportunity to manage such difficult dependencies. This allows to resolve conflicts between versions and to use new versions of libraries if necessary.

Builds from the command line. It’s often necessary for automation project build on the server (Continuous Integration).

Strong integration with development frameworks. Main java-based development frameworks open the projects created by maven. At the same time there is no need to configure the project, as it’s ready for the further development. As a result if the project is used in different development frameworks, then maven can be a convenient way to store settings. Configuration file for the development framework and for the build is the same that means less data duplication and accordingly much fewer defects.